R.I.P. Mstislav Rostropovich

[carlos]

Rachmaninoff cello sonata: Slava-Alexander Dieduchin.
Best version  I ever heard

[маразм1]

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, who became an international symbol of the fight for artistic freedom under Soviet rule, died on Friday aged 80.

President Vladimir Putin, who last month feted the maestro when he made a frail appearance at his 80th birthday celebration in the Kremlin, called Rostropovich's death a ``huge loss.''

``I want to tell (his) relatives and loved ones, 'Please accept my deepest condolences. This is a huge loss for Russian culture','' Russian agencies quoted Putin as saying.

Writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, sheltered by Rostropovich during his tussles with Soviet authorities in the 1970s, said the musician's passing was a ``bitter blow.''

``They tried to forcefully separate him fromby revoking his citizenship 30 years ago,'' said Solzhenitsyn, who spent 20 years of forced exile in the West. ``I am witness to how painful that was for him.

``Farewell my beloved friend,'' he said.

The cellist's death was announced four days after that of his friend, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, whom Rostropovich joined on the barricades to resist a coup by Soviet hardliners in 1991.

Russian news agencies quoted a source close to the musician as saying that Rostropovich had died in a Moscow hospital after a long illness.

A funeral service will take place in the Christ the Savior Cathedral on Sunday and he will be buried in Moscow's Novodevichye cemetery, where Yeltsin was laid to rest on Wednesday with full state honors.

At his birthday appearance, Rostropovich stood up unsteadily and delivered a brief speech in a faltering voice.

``I'm the happiest man,'' he said. ``My family, friends and colleagues are here with me on this day.''

It was his first public appearance since he was admitted in February to a Moscow hospital. At the time, his secretary said his condition was not life-threatening.

CELLO TO CIVIL RIGHTS

Rostropovich was one of Russia's best-loved cultural figures and considered among the world's greatest cellists. He also earned a reputation internationally as a champion of civil rights during Soviet rule.

While he was out of the country in 1978, the Kremlin stripped him of his citizenship for what state newspapers labeled ``unpatriotic activity.''

In an interview with Strad magazine nearly 20 years later, the shy, bespectacled cellist described what the decision had meant to him and his wife, soprano Galina Vishnevskaya.

``When Leonid Brezhnev stripped us of our citizenship in 1978, we were obliterated,'' he said in 1997. ``My wife and I were cut out of photographs and history books.''

He landed himself in trouble by speaking up in defense of Solzhenitsyn and dissident Andrei Sakharov when they came under attack from the Soviet authorities.

The Kremlin restored his citizenship in 1990 in the new spirit of openness under Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Back home, Rostropovich became a leading light in the country's nascent democracy movement that eventually led to the Soviet Union's collapse. He was among the crowds who defied a putsch by hardliners trying to turn back Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika reforms.

Within days of the Berlin Wall coming down, Rostropovich took his cello and flew to Berlin to play an impromptu and unannounced concert next to the remains of the wall.

``It was a call of the heart,'' he said later.

Music impresario Lilian Hochhauser, who knew Rostropovich well, called him a ``genius.''

``He was number one, absolutely. He is the last of these great (musical Russian) titans to go.

``Not only was he a most extraordinary musician, he was also a great humanitarian, and an inspiration to countless composers who wrote fine music especially for him,'' she told Reuters.

In his last years, Rostropovich divided his time between Russia, the United States and France. He and his wife set up a charitable foundation to improve health care among children in former Soviet states.



from nytimes

[Maciek]

The news have already been posted in the General Classical Music Discussion room, so I'll merge the two topics.

[bhodges]

Maciek completes the merger! 

PS, found a nice drawing of Rostropovich that I put in a little tribute on my blog.

--Bruce

[MishaK]

Maciek completes the merger! 

PS, found a nice drawing of Rostropovich that I put in a little tribute on my blog.

--Bruce

Nice. I see you attended the same concert I did last year with Slava/Vengerov/NYPO. It was indeed memorable. Such vitality in his conducting. I would never have thought he would be gone merely a year later. Then again, Solti showed no signs of frailty when I saw him conduct half a year before he suddenly keeled over.

[bhodges]

You know...(hindsight, of course)...the thought did cross my mind that this might be the last time we'd see him.  But even then I don't think I knew about his cancer.  He may have not disclosed it until later. 

That was a really excellent evening.  (I went on Saturday night.)  Vengerov just floored me, and even if my comments on the Tenth Symphony sounded a bit measured, I still enjoyed it very much. 

It feels like a genuine musical giant has left us, e.g. Isaac Stern (whose death came tragically in the wake of 9/11 when most of us had other things on our minds).  Llike Stern, I really admire Rostropovich for doing so much extra-musical work, in addition to his playing and conducting.

--Bruce

[vandermolen]

Prokofiev's Birthday is the 23rd.

That Miaskovsky concerto is so beautifully played - one of the few things that brings a tear to my eye.

I agree. I played it tonight in tribute. It has a unique atmosphere, unlike all the other recordings of the Miaskovsky concerto (and I have them all). I have the recording on EMI Matrix with a Taneyev work but I shall get the new EMI Legendary Performances version for the great Prokofiev coupling, played on BBC Radio 3 tonight in tribute.

[val]

If I had two choices:

DUTILLEUX Concerto, condcted by Baudo

STRAUSS Don Quixotte conducted by Karajan

[hautbois]

I am completely ashamed of myself for not owning one single recording of late Rostropovich. I will look hard tonight!

Howard

[uffeviking]

If I had two choices:

STRAUSS Don Quixotte conducted by Karajan

That is the one I picked, the video, because it shows so clearly the cooperation between two great artists performing the work of a third one.

[Que]

I hope that Melodiya will soon issue his recording of the Tchaikovsky trio with Gilels and Kogan!
I passed the LP transfer on Dante Lys years ago and I've regretted it ever since...

Q

[val]

I see Rostropovitch as one of the three greatest cellists of the century, with Casals and Fournier. All were very different, but their art marked the repertory of the cello for ever.

Rostropovitch, in my opinion, never achieved a version of the "bibles" of the instrument, Bach's Suites and Beethoven Sonatas, that could be compared to Casals or Fournier. But he was unique in the XX century music.
To understand what made Rostropovitch the giant he was there is a good example:
To compare his version of Lutoslawski Concerto with the one of Heinrich Schiff. Schiff is a great artist and a very serious interpreter. We listen to his version and find it very, very good. Than we listen to Rostropovitch ... and, it is another thing. A presence, that puts his version on another dimension.   

[Guido]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/arts/music/27cnd-Rostropovichcnd.html?ex=1335326400&en=aef9dbc920ebadda&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702175.html

Two good obituaries about the great man, the second summing up the cellists perspective very well I think.

[Joe Barron]

I lived in DC during the 80s, and so I got to see Misha (as my wife, a Russian linguist, referred to him) many times on the podium. Once I even ran into him on the street. It was a cool, sunny evening, I believe in spring, and I was walking toward the Kennedy Center, where the NSO was about to play a concert of American music. I  began to whistle a theme from the Copland Organ Symphony, one of the works on the program, and the man walking ahead of me turned around and, smiling, said, "That's the Copland." It was Rostropovich.

He was also the solosit in the Piston Variations for Cello and Orchestra that night.

[Harry Collier]

I hope that Melodiya will soon issue his recording of the Tchaikovsky trio with Gilels and Kogan!
I passed the LP transfer on Dante Lys years ago and I've regretted it ever since...

Yes, it's one of the world's great recordings. I acquired it on Arlecchino many years ago (as part of the label's Kogan collection) and have never regretted it. And I'm sure someone could improve on the so-so Arlecchino transfer.

[oyasumi]

Is that really true though? For a start it presents the people as monolithic and isn't that something we accuse Stalin of? And second, it simply seems a bit far fetched!

Russians are better than normal people and can appreciate on a deeper level. It's life

[stingo]

...seemed like a good choice.

Requiescat in Pacem

[quintett op.57]

I've seen him once : last January (Shosta Sy10 & PC1)

[Haffner]

Russians are better than normal people and can appreciate on a deeper level. It's life

Ah.

[Marc]

For this weekend I selected Slava and Benjamin Britten, playing Schubert, Schumann and Debussy, and had a great time listening.

He will me missed.